


there are far better things ahead

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 22:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14628057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: 5 times Mack regrets something + 1 time he doesn't. Set in season 2, during the Real S.H.I.E.L.D. fiasco.





	there are far better things ahead

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies if you've already seen this - AO3 doesn't seem to be loading it on my works page for whatever reason and I reposted just to see if I could fix the glitch. :)

i.

It’s early in the morning – maybe four, maybe five. Mack doesn’t want to check the clock because he knows that, however early it is, it’ll still be too late. He has to leave soon, before the rest of the base wakes up and sees him creeping back to his room like he’s ashamed of the fact that he has shared a bed with the people he loves the most in the world.

Bobbi is awake, too, but she’s quiet, playing with a curl of hair that’s fallen across Hunter’s forehead. Lance is beautiful when he sleeps, and vulnerable in a way he’ll never let himself be when he’s awake. Everything about his face, from the slant of his nose to the softness of his lips to the arc of his cheekbones screams _protect me_ , and Mack wants to. He really wants to.

“Are you sure we can’t –” Mack whispers.

“Honey,” Bobbi cuts him off but doesn’t look up at him. She’s still fiddling with Hunter’s hair, worrying it between her fingertips. “If I thought we could, I’d have done it by now.” She drops the strands of hair and makes eye contact with Mack. “We’re doing the right thing,” she says. They both ignore the way the doubt creeps in at the edges, the way her voice trembles with all the worries they both have.

There’s an eyelash under one of Hunter’s eyes, and Mack swipes the pad of his thumb across Lance’s face to clear it away. Lance stirs, nuzzling into Mack’s palm, and Mack’s heart squeezes in the most painful way.

“I should get going,” he says.

Bobbi opens her mouth to say that he shouldn’t, he should stay – but that happens every morning. Every morning he wants to stay, and every morning she wants to ask him to, but they _can’t_. It’s about a lot of things. Gonzales would have both of their heads if he knew that they were both compromised. He was already upset enough with Bobbi for her relationship with Hunter. And there was also Coulson’s team to consider. They had all gotten so used to the Bobbi-and-Hunter narrative… the truth would confuse them.

And then maybe they’d realize that the reason Bobbi and Hunter broke up wasn’t exactly because Bobbi was keeping secrets. It was because Bobbi was keeping secrets, and Mack had left because of them, and Hunter had followed him out the door.

Mack blinks away the shame and the memories as best as he can, but Bobbi’s seen them flicker behind his eyes already. “Love you,” she tells him, and he forces a small smile before she leans over to peck his lips.

“Love you too.” He gets out of bed, checks to make sure the shirt he’s about to put on is his own (it is), and then gives Lance’s sleeping form one last long, lingering look. Something stirs in his stomach, and Mack ignores the feeling as he walks out of the bunk.

He doesn’t look back. (But he wants to, and later regrets that he doesn’t.)

\---

ii.

Mack is a monster.

He doesn’t believe what he’s just done.

 _Shit_.

He looks at Hunter, chained to the bathroom sink, and has to close his eyes so he doesn’t start bawling. He’s already using most of his willpower to keep his hands from shaking, and there are tremors running through his fingers anyways.

He has never felt like this before – so guilty that he feels like he can’t breathe. Being the rock is the only thing Mack knows how to do; he doesn’t know how to have a crisis of faith, how to deal with the overwhelming guilt even though he did the right thing. He did the right thing, because he kept his cover, and Bobbi’s.

It feels like the wrong thing, because he has also broken a promise. He and Bobbi had both said when they joined Coulson’s team and started their relationship with Hunter again that he was not going to get hurt. They could accept other collateral, but not him. Never him.

Mack lets out another shaky breath and buries his head in his hands. What has he _done_?

He feels unclean, like he needs to wash himself for days, or maybe years. He knows he can’t scrub himself of the guilt, but Mack wants to try. He is going to hear Hunter gasping for breath in his nightmares for the rest of his life, and the thought hurts.

 _Loving_ fucking hurts. Most of the time, it is bright and beautiful and joyful, like a sunrise after the longest night on earth, but this is not most of the time. It is not incandescent, and it is not stunning. It just _hurts_. Someone has stuck a knife in his heart and is wiggling it around, and that’s why he feels so bad, Mack decides. He can understand physical pain. He can deal with physical pain. But he cannot deal with feeling like someone is ripping him apart from the inside.

Hunter lets out a moan, and Mack forces his eyes open, trying to think of what to say. The excuses all seem forced, his justifications hollow. _We are doing the right thing_. Mack hates that the right thing somehow means that the man he loves got hurt at his hands.

Talking to Hunter makes everything worse. Lance’s realization that he had been betrayed was the worse thing that Mack has ever seen and will ever see. It’s etched into his cerebral cortex, a reminder of the cost of his choices.

Regret burns his stomach and Mack spends the rest of the night in the other bathroom, hunched over the toilet as he vomits until his throat is raw. 

Everything sucks, and it’s all his fault. He regrets it all.

\---

iii.

Mack walks into the gym ready to murder something. He has never been as good as Bobbi at letting his anger out via working out (he normally just lets it fester), but today, something is different. He doesn’t even know what, but he’s so pissed off that he can’t even see straight. Ever since the fiasco with revealing Real S.H.I.E.L.D. his emotions have been dialed up to eleven. Nothing feels small anymore; everything is the end of the fucking world.

Mack stops in his tracks when he sees Hunter laying on the weight bench, bench pressing at least thirty pounds over his normal limit. It’s like he’s trying to get himself hurt.

Mack strides over, lifting the bar back into place. Hunter looks confused for a moment before he registers Mack’s face above him. The smaller man is halfway off the bench in a blink of an eye. “I’m not talking to you,” he growls. Mack lets out a breath. He deserves this. He knows he deserves this.

“Doesn’t mean I have to let you crush yourself,” Mack replies, trying desperately to keep his voice cool.

Hunter glares at him. Without saying anything more, he turns to leave.

Mack knows this is it. He needs to at least try to tell Lance that he’s sorry, even if he won’t listen. “Teacup –”

“Don’t call me that!” Hunter snaps, whirling back around. His voice raises a half an octave from the beginning of the sentence to the end, and Mack wonders if it’s just wishful thinking that he sees Lance’s eyes shining. “You lost the right,” he says, voice calmer. Hunter doesn’t say when Mack lost the right to call him by the stupid pet name, but they both know.

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Mack says, because he has to try.

“Not sorry enough,” Hunter bites back. “Or you wouldn’t have done it. I _loved_ you, and you –” His mouth clacks shut and turns around again. The use of the past tense isn’t lost on Mack, even if he doesn’t want to believe it.

“I still love you,” Mack murmurs. He knows Hunter hears him, because all the muscles in his back go tense.

“Go to hell, Mack,” Lance says, voice tight.

Mack waits for Hunter to storm out of the room before letting out a long sigh. “I’m already there,” he whispers. All of his anger has been sucked out of him, and he doesn’t feel like working out anymore.

Defeated, he walks out of the gym, trudging back to the loneliness of his bunk and the smell of regret on the air.

\---

iv.

Just when Mack thinks he’s hit rock bottom, he plunges even deeper into despair.

Bobbi’s hurt, badly. She’s stopped breathing more than once in the past twenty-four hours and Mack can’t shake the feeling that he should have done something to keep that from happening. He’s already failed to protect Hunter, and now he’s failed again with Bobbi.

The despair comes because he can’t tell anyone anything. He can’t explain that he’s worried out of his mind about Bobbi, not just because she’s his friend but because she’s his _partner_ , and not in the way everyone is used to the two of them being partners. He can’t explain that he wants so badly to hug Lance and promise him that everything is going to be okay, but his other partner still isn’t speaking to him, and doesn't want his comfort.

Mack is an island, surrounded by crashing seas that want nothing more than to erase him from existence.

A knock at the door jerks him from his depressing thoughts, and Mack levers himself off his bed to open it. Daisy’s standing on the other side, looking extremely somber. Mack presses his fist against his lips and closes his eyes. If she’s about to tell him that Bobbi’s gone, he might lose it. He can’t do this.

“Hunter’s asking for you,” is what Daisy actually says. She disappears before he can formulate a response, ask if she’s sure that’s what Hunter really wants.

Mack is in no position to question the request, though. If Hunter’s asking for him, he’s going to be there.

He appears in the doorway of the med bay two minutes later. He’s breathing a little harder than normal, because he ran the whole fucking way. Hunter’s sitting next to an empty hospital bed, staring off into space. Mack’s frozen in place for a moment.

Hunter looks over, and time bends, because less than a second later he’s wrapped tight in Mack’s arms.

They stand there, together, and for the millionth time, Mack wonders why he ever agreed to lie to this man, who is so small and so scared and so bruised.

“I lied,” Lance says, breaking the silence. Mack grips him tighter, not sure if he wants to hear what comes next. Did he lie about wanting Mack? Did he want him to go? “I said I loved you, and that was a lie.” Mack feels the press of Lance’s nose into his sternum, and inhales, trying to figure out how to respond to being told that everything he thought he knew was a lie – that he had never been loved. “It’s a lie because I still love you.” Lance’s words are almost entirely muffled by Mack’s chest, but he hears them anyways, and everything slides into focus. _Oh_.

“I love you, too,” Mack says, voice shaking. He doesn’t feel like an island anymore, doesn’t feel like he’s about to be sucked under the ocean. He has Hunter and he’s afraid of what will happen if he lets go.

Lance’s shoulders begin to quiver, and without thinking, Mack guides them back to the chair. Hunter curls up in his lap, muffling his sobs in Mack’s neck. Mack strokes the back of Hunter’s head, murmuring sweet nothings in between pressing kisses to Hunter’s temple.

Bobbi comes back from surgery, still out cold. The doctors don’t say anything about the way Hunter’s face is pressed into the space between Mack’s collarbones, but they see.

Neither of them moves and it feels like a declaration of something big.

Mack is done with regrets.

\---

v.

He is done with regrets, but regrets are not done with him. Bobbi wakes up (thank God) and sees the way he is holding onto Hunter, possessive and not at all platonic and in _public_ , and declares they need to talk.

And yeah, they do need to talk, because even though Hunter’s admitted that he still loves them, there’s still a shitload of things they need to apologize for, things that make Mack’s stomach clench so hard it hurts. There’s also the fact that Mack wants to tell everyone that he loves them. It’s going to be complicated. It’s probably going to hurt. But Mack wants it so bad that he can barely breathe, and Bobbi sees that.

All he wants is for people to see that she sees him. It’s simple, but complicated, just like everything else.

The thing is, it’s not that complicated. They apologize to Lance, a lot. He tells them that he’s never going to understand why they chose Real S.H.I.E.L.D. over Coulson, but he is willing to let it go. Hunter is willing to let something go, which is weird in and of itself. He holds grudges like nobody’s business. But he loves them.

They just talk about who to tell and how, and it’s probably the easiest talk they’ve all had in a long, long time. It’s easy to agree about everything, because it’s really just logic. They’ll tell the people who care about them as individuals. It’s going to be casual, the same way you’d mention that you’re in a relationship with anyone.

It’s going to be casual, but damn, it’ll be beautiful.

Mack’s only regret now – the last one, he swears – is that they did not do this sooner.

\---

\+ i.

Almost a year has gone by, the pain of yesterdays not forgotten, but not all-consuming. It’s Mack’s birthday, and of course _someone_ (Barbara Morse) had to insist that they have a proper party, even knowing that Mack doesn’t like being the center of attention.

He does like cake, though, and Hunter is pressing a forkful of vanilla against his lips. Mack opens his mouth and takes the bite of cake, rolling his eyes at how pleased Lance looks.

“Oi!” Hunter exclaims, withdrawing the second forkful he was about to feed his partner. “No eye-rolling!”

“But it’s my birthday,” Mack simpers, batting his eyelashes. Lance is really into this shit – the idea that a birthday makes a person unable to do any wrong. Mack normally hates it because Lance is absolutely _insufferable_ on his own birthday, but he figures if he has an advantage, he should use it.

Lance narrows his eyes. “I hate you.”

“You do not,” Bobbi retorts, smacking Lance upside the head. Mack laughs at the scowl on Hunter’s face.

“C’mere, you,” Mack says, wrapping an arm around Hunter’s shoulders and pulling him close into his side.

“Ew,” Daisy says, covering her eyes. “I don’t wanna watch you guys kiss!”

“We weren’t kissing.” Mack replies coolly.

“We’re about to be, though,” Lance smirks, his buttercream-smeared lips sliding against Mack’s. Daisy makes a gagging noise, but Mack doesn’t care because Lance’s lips are warm and sweet and this feels _right_.

Bobbi’s hand lands on his shoulder, and Mack turns away from Lance to look up at her. “Happy birthday,” she says quietly. Mack pulls her into his lap, too – one advantage to being much larger than both of his partners is that he can hold them both easily.

Hunter picks up his fork again, offering the cake to Mack, and he smiles. “What, you’re not going to say it, too?” he asks Lance.

Hunter snorts. “Nope.”

Bobbi reaches over to smack him again, but Mack grabs her wrist, bringing it to his lips so he can kiss her palm.

“You know what?” Daisy asks, gaining Mack’s attention. “I’m just gonna go. Let’s go, guys.” she says, gesturing to the rest of the team, who had been too engrossed in their own conversations to pay attention to the playful bickering between the threesome. Unsurprisingly, no one else moves.

Mack’s attention is drawn back to his partners when he feels a warm breath against his ear.

“Happy birthday,” Hunter growls. Mack’s confused, until he sees that Bobbi’s hand is under the table, suspiciously close to Hunter’s dick.

Mack lets out a loud, long laugh. He doesn’t have a care in the world, and it feels good. He feels good.

He doesn’t regret a damn thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope y'all enjoyed reading it! In my half-asleep haze last night, I thought a great name for Lance/Mack/Bobbi as a ship could be ballance ( **b** obbi/ **al** phonso/ **lance** ). Thoughts?
> 
> Also, hit me up on [tumblr](https://huntxngbxrd.tumblr.com)! I'm currently accepting fic requests because I'm trying to explore more ships in the AoS fandom, and also seeking opinions on what my next multi-chap fic should be. :)


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